Stumbling
by FloatingBubbles
Summary: Definition: to trip in walking or running, to walk unsteadily or clumsily. For example, Ami Mizuno wearing very sexy high heels. AmiZoi, Part 3 in the “Awkward” trilogy.


Disclaimer: I own nothing Sailor Moon, I don't own Thomas Edison (or his light bulbs), and I don't own any of the books mentioned in this story. Hopefully that covers it, if not, please pretend it did.

Dedication: To reviews, and to the reviewers! I love you, you make my day brighter!

A/N: This is the final story in the Awkward Trilogy, and I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations.

All the notifications at the beginning of _Awkward_ apply here. You should go read them. You should probably go read the story, too, if you haven't already. See, while it is _possible_ to read _Stumbling_ without having read _Awkward _and _Diaphanous_, it is not advised, because you probably won't get a lot of the jokes.

Oh, and this story, like _Diaphanous_, is rather long, but I opted not to split it up. Firstly because I got more reviews for _Awkward_ than for _Diaphanous_ and I'm wondering if that was because I split the latter up; secondly, because I couldn't find a good mid-story breaking point.

That's all I really have to say, so enjoy!:

* * *

**Stumbling**

The girl in the mirror was precariously perched upon a pair of silver three-and-a-half-inch stiletto heels with rhinestone buckles that glimmered in the light.

The girl in the mirror wore a small, glittery black tank top which showed off the cleavage that she never had (the faking of which was the main purpose of the top).

The girl in the mirror had a tiny jean skirt—more belt than skirt—slung low upon her hips, in what was an altogether sexy manner.

The girl in the mirror may have been short, pale, blue-eyed and blue-haired, but the girl in the mirror was _not_ Ami Mizuno.

At least, she was not the Ami Mizuno that Ami ever had any intention to be.

It was as soon as she realized this that Ami knew there was no possible way that she could go out of the house in her current state of apparel.

Which, when paired with the fact that she could never tolerate tardiness, left Ami with quite a dilemma.

And so, Ami (who had always taken comfort in solid knowledge) consulted The Facts:

Fact: she certainly had time to change into another outfit before it became necessary to leave in the interest of punctuality. She was, after all, rather quick at dressing and not at all given over to primping.

However,

Fact: should she change clothing, even quickly, it would _still _take a ridiculously long amount of time to get out of the apartment.

This was the fault of her lovely best-friends-and-roommates, who were the ones who had but her in this horrific attire in the first place.

(Not that her friends had bad taste—quite the opposite, in fact. There were just some types of clothing—like small tank tops and smaller skirts—that _they_ could pull off but _Ami_—as she adamantly claimed—couldn't)

She knew precisely how it would play out: said lovely friends would do everything in their power to get her to change back, she would stubbornly refuse, and by the time the two parties came to a compromise it would be at_ least_ 8:00, making Ami would be horrendously late for her date (which was supposed to begin at the aforementioned time).

(Her heart pounded frantically in her chest as she allowed herself to even _think_ the word "date." She repressed it with a vicious mental rebuttal of, "not right now!")

Fact: she couldn't sneak past them. On the off chance that they were _not_ all hovering around the door to see her off, she couldn't get around the fact that the door had an enormous creak that could probably be heard from the next country.

Which led to,

Fact: she could not change.

And,

Fact: she could not bring herself to _not_ change.

Fact: she most definitely couldn't go naked, either.

For any other person, this would have been a dilemma with no solution. However, Ami was not "The Smart One" for nothing. And these facts were not at all useless.

Thomas Edison, upon failing to create the first light bulb, had said something a lot like, "I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work."

By those terms, Ami had precisely enough information to make a light bulb.

***

Ami hastily made her way to the door, nervously patting her overly-bulgy purse.

All she had to do was get out of the flat.

Ami made a mad dash to the door and, hastily calling out a goodbye, quickly and nervously made to leave the apartment amid the jumble of overlapping characteristic calls:

"Oh, you look great! You better have fun!" (Serena, who was so nice that she would probably tell her she looked great were she wearing a potato sack)

"Don't let him walk all over you!" (Rei, with all her passion and fire and argument, was perpetually worried about Ami's cool and quiet temperament)

"Remember, if he tries _anything_ on you, just call!" (Lita, who was somewhat belligerent, especially since she still kind of thought that the date was a creeper)

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" (Mina, accompanied by a suggestive wink which Ami would have seen had she not been halfway out the door).

Then, she was out.

No one had noticed.

She straightened her (still tiny, she grimaced) skirt, patted her purse (all there) and checked her watch.

Time: 7:31 PM. Good.

***

It is quite amazing, the things that a human being can achieve when armed with a large amount of steel determination, a rush of adrenaline, and a healthy dose of fear.

Like lift cars that were in the midst of crushing treasured children, or finishing a tomorrow-due paper in record time, or going to work despite an incapacitating sleep deficit…

…or, as in this case, running easily under otherwise impossible conditions; namely, ridiculously tall, skinny footwear.

Due to this unlucky phenomenon, Ami didn't realize that she had forgotten a change of shoes until much later, when she was hurriedly changing in the café bathrooms.

At which point, were someone to be keeping a record, her normally clean, properly worded thoughts would read as follows:

_Shit._

***

Zach was never early.

In fact, Zach was rarely even on time. When confronted about this habit for tardiness, he would claim that he was deliberately being "fashionably late."

He had long ago learned that this excuse did _not_ work on his good friend Kevin (in fact, excuses in general rarely worked on Kevin).

So, when he had said that he was going to be "fashionably late" to his date that night (in reality, he didn't know where his favorite green shirt was and needed time to find it), he had been immediately rerouted, handed a different shirt (this one blue) and informed that "the rudest thing you could possibly do is make her wait there all by herself."

Which is how Zach ended up early (a half an hour early) at the Blue Moon Café, and was currently lounging alone at a table, idly fiddling with a bouquet of bluebells ("They're all slumped over, like they're _dead_!" Nick had said, "You can't give her _dead _flowers!" but Zach had insisted—they were the only blue flora in the store).

Jason had had commentary on the date, too. His was a sarcastically acidic, "Really, Zach, the_ Blue Moon_? Classy. Real, real classy."

Zach had become defensive, listing all sorts of reasons for the choice: it was the first place they met, she obviously knew how to get there, and there was a movie theater right next door (as well as a multitude of little shops), and the Blue Moon served great sandwiches (this was something of a lie. Their sandwiches were really only mediocre, and half the time the meat was partially frozen).

Jason had initially muttered (quite audibly) about Zach just being too nervous to think of anyplace else, but, after another barrage of justification, had good-naturedly surrendered the argument. Somehow, Zach had still felt like he'd lost.

As he mused on this, he was very (_very_) surprised to see a girl who he knew as Ami Mizuno walk into the café.

It was not her presence that surprised him—he had, after all, planned a date with her, and he was not so insecure as to think she would not show up—but instead a number of other factors. Her gait, for one, which was rushed and rapid, as well as the fact that she was about fifteen minutes early (it was now, his watch stated, 7:47 PM). The most surprising thing about her, though, was her state of dress; she was altogether scantily clad, and, while attractive, she didn't look quite right dressed like that. And he couldn't help but think that she had not seemed like that kind of girl.

Then again, he had only seen her once and talked to her twice before this. Who was he to judge?

Suddenly, she caught his staring eyes, and began to blush. Violently. Gulping (his mouth was dry…why was his mouth so dry?), he made to call out to her, only to be stilled by a finger held up in his direction and a mouthing of the words, "one minute."

She then promptly disappeared into the women's restrooms.

Which left Zachary Tanzan utterly, totally, and completely baffled.

Not to mention definitely in need of a cold glass of water and a colder shower.

After a few minutes of watching this thought float around his head, Zach decided to at least get the more accessible of the two, and, after even more minutes trying to decide if he was going to get up and staring at the bathroom door, he finally stood and turned to the small counter at the side of the room where he and the girl who had so mysteriously vanished had met.

He thought about her as he picked up a plastic cup from the stack, and he thought about her strange display as he placed it on the countertop and grabbed the pitcher. He wondered why she had been dressed so strangely as he poured the water in the cup, and, as he was picking up the cup to take it back with him, he thought that she had been an awfully long time in that bathroom and when was she—

He was cut off as a solid object slammed into his back, throwing him forward a bit and causing him to upturn his entire cup of (very very cold) water onto his shirt, where it proceeded to seep into his clothing and all down his front.

Angrily, he turned to the person who had knocked him, ready to fight, only to come face-to-face with a very apologetic Ami who, after staring at him briefly, grabbed a napkin from the counter and began wiping at his shirt frantically while repeating "sorry" a ridiculous number of times and muttering intermittently something nonsensical about shoes and balance and accidents and having a bad day.

Then, realizing that Zach was staring at her (he had only just noticed that she was far more modestly dressed in jeans-and-a-t-shirt, and was trying to decide if he was disappointed or relieved)(he settled on relieved), she rapidly got extremely quiet and stopped dabbing at his shirt altogether, staring back.

Zach silently held out the bluebells.

Blushing, Ami accepted them just as silently, forgetting to even thank him in her embarrassment.

There was a long, awkward pause.

"Well…hi." Ami broke it shyly.

Zach replied with a very uninteresting "hi" in return.

Another really long, really awkward pause.

Really, _really_ long.

Really, _really_ awkward.

Then, at the precise same time, the two broke out into simultaneous speech.

"I'm really sorry about that, my friends—!"

"Do you mind explaining exactly what—?"

They both stopped speaking in order to let the other finish his or her thought, resulting in yet another silence.

Finally, Zach, with an altogether perplexed look on his face, asked (indicating Ami's waist region and referring to her earlier outfit), "What that thing a skirt or a belt?"

Ami—albeit nervously—smiled.

Before that moment, she had been certain that she was having a horribly bad day.

She still wasn't convinced that she _wasn't_, but there was hope.

There was hope.

***

If Zach noticed Ami walking a touch oddly as they made their way to the cash register, he didn't mention it.

He also didn't give any indication of noticing that she leaned heavily on the counter when she got there, and he didn't seem to give a second thought to her slightly off-kilter movements on the way back to the table.

To be honest, Ami (knowing that her shoe trouble was rather obvious) was trying to figure out if he was very tactful or just very oblivious.

She had yet to come to a satisfactory conclusion.

It was driving her crazy.

It drove her slightly crazier when, seemingly ignorant of her imbalance, he had begun to make small talk over the sandwiches—how old are you; what do you study in school; what's your favorite color? She answered (twenty one; biology; blue) cordially, and politely shot the questions back, interested despite her bemusement.

He answered (twenty two; architecture; blue, also—it used to be yellow, though), in a manner just as vague as she had, further confusing her.

What she didn't know was that Zach was (ironically) very much distracted by Ami's high heels, which he found remarkably sexy.

He had no intention of telling her this.

And, since she didn't know, she made the mistake of attempting to nullify the awkwardness by picking up her plate and his, thanking him for paying (he had done so earlier), and moving to take the dirty dishes away.

At which point she proceeded to wobble as she walked, clutched the back of a chair for support, noticed that, in clutching the chair, she had let go of the plates, let go of the chair in a vain attempt to catch the plates, and ended up in a rather messy Ami-and-broken-plates pile on the café floor.

It was actually a rather humorous sight, but, understanding the extent of her embarrassment (he had been in a very similar situation recently, with hot tea in the place of ceramic plates), Zach managed to refrain from laughing. He was just in the midst of asking her if she was alright when a rather angry looking middle-aged woman came running out from behind the counter, her countenance livid and red.

Her voice sounded like the impact of gravel hitting a chalkboard (maybe from excess screaming?), "Not another two goddamn plates! Do you even understand that—"

"—listen, ma'am! I'm so sorry! I promise I will—" Ami sounded desperate, not bothering to pick herself up off the floor, but attempting to brush the crumbs out of her hair.

"—the damn hussies! Always come in, flouncing about, not a care in the world for anyone but themselves, and look—"

Zach then got involved, "—look, she said she was—"

"—Oh! And you! I know your type—" the woman tugged a lock of his far-too-long hair, "prancing around like you own the whole damn—"

"—ma'am, this is getting to be—"

"—ah, shut your damn trap, you hussy—"

"—I don't think that—"

"—who gives a damn what—"

"—I know it's inconvenient—"

"—you can be damn sure it's inconvenient! Now I'm going to get a broom, so you," she pointed to Zach, who closed his mouth on the impending comment, "and you," she pointed at Ami, still seated upon the ground, "had better damn well not be around when I get back." She stalked angrily off.

They stared at the place where she had gone.

"Is it just me, or does she seem overly fond of the word 'damn'?"

Ami gave a brief, out-of-control sounding laugh at the comment, and, when Zach looked at her, he saw that she was somewhere teetering on the brink of hysteria.

She made an interesting picture, he had to admit. Denim-clad legs curled haphazardly underneath her, shards of plate strewn about her form, crumbs stubbornly clinging to her hair and embarrassed tears threatening to fall from her downcast eyes, all while an out-of-place grimace of a smile managed to stay its place on her face.

He crouched down next to her, "You okay?"

"Yeah."

(She was lying. In truth, she was embarrassed, her head hurt, and she was having a very bad day.)

"Need help getting up?"

"No, thanks."

(She was lying again.)

He stood up to give her room, but came right back to catch her as, only a fraction of second after she was on her feet, she tripped again.

She looked at him, her cheeks endearingly pink, "Thanks."

"Your welcome." A beat. "Do you have balance issues?" he asked, then winced at the bluntness of the question.

Luckily, Ami was not offended in the least, "It's these ridiculous shoes." she burst out, "my friends got me to wear them and I forgot to bring a change and now I can't even seem to walk in a straight line!" again Ami seemed on the edge of hysterics, or at least about to pull her hair out in acute frustration.

Zach put an arm around her supportively. "Come on, let's get out of here before that banshee comes back. Then we'll solve your footwear problem."

"Thanks. Again." She gripped his arm as they began to make their way out. However, Ami had never really been the sort to lean on a man for support—to lean on _anyone_ for support—for any prolonged period of time. So it was not surprising when, after a few painstaking steps, Ami informed him that they were to come to a stop and promptly pulled off the offending articles of clothing.

She always had a solution. Some solutions were just a bit classier than others. This was one of the less classy ones.

(Zach was just figuring this out, but he rather thought he liked that about her. A lot.)

Once they were outside, though, she realized that this was a bit of a problem. There were far too many possibly foot-mauling objects to be found in the great outdoors, particularly the greatly littered-upon strip mall outdoors.

Not to mention said endangered feet were absolutely _freezing_ in the cold air and her jacket was far too light for the weather.

"Well, I'd offer you my shoes, but I seriously doubt your little feet would even be able to stay inside them." Zach was thinking aloud. Quickly. It was too cold to think slowly. "Or…yes, I suppose that will have to do."

He began to shuck off his shoes, and, before she knew what was happening, a rather dirty, well-worn sock was being held in her face, followed by its pair.

If she were Serena, Ami thought, she would scrunch up her nose and put her heels back on, and relegate herself with wobbling through the night. If she were Rei, she would make a nasty quip about the state of the socks and proceed to proudly wear the shoes just to show she could. If she were Mina, she would not have conceivably had a problem with high stiletto heels, and, were she Lita, she would never have let herself be bullied into them in the first place.

Being Ami, she smiled, thankfully took the socks (They weren't really that bad, she decided), slid them on her feet, and relished in the warmth.

***

It was by unspoken agreement that the duo walked (relatively quickly, in the interest of escaping from the cold) towards the movie theater; it seemed to be the only reasonable thing to do, seeing as they _were_ on a date, and there _was_ a movie theater nearby.

(This, however, did not stop Ami from glancing wistfully at a small bookstore as they passed it.)

Soon enough, they found themselves shivering outside the box office and looking at the titles of the movies under the words proclaiming "Now Playing!" in cheesy red neon.

The list was as follows:

**The Phantom Strikes Back (R)**

**The Hungry Hubby (PG)**

**My Dad the Florist (PG-13)**

**Cockroach: The Life and Times (PG)**

**I Love You II (PG-13)**

**The Music Mouse (G)**

And

**The Goths Meet the Visigoths VI: High School Goes Barbaric (R)**

"It wasn't already?" Zach hissed to Ami indicating the last title. She noticed that he looked just about as disgusted and perplexed as she did.

Zach bit his lip, thinking.

(He was not yet ready to call the night a flop and go home, which would undoubtedly be the result should they _not_ view the movie. But really, what kind of movies were _these_?)

Ami was surprised when he muttered in a strangled, uncertain voice, "Well, the cockroach one might not be so bad? Educational, and all, you know?" And, used to avoiding conflict and, thus, agreeing with people Ami nodded.

As she watched him go up to buy the tickets, though, she was struck by the memory of her friends' voices—"Don't let him walk all over you!" Rei had said. "You better have fun!" Serena had called.

Maybe it was the confidence in those statements that gave her the courage, or maybe it was the fact that Zach had looked just as horrified by the movies as she was…but, a moment later, she was standing at his elbow, tugging his sleeve and preventing him from paying the ticket guy.

Ever-so-quietly, "Zach. I'm really sorry about this, but I'm going to be completely honest with you." She looked him in the eye. "I really don't want to go see a movie about cockroaches. In fact, I don't really want to see a movie at all."

For the briefest of moments, Zach looked surprised. Then he sighed in relief.

"Really? I don't either. In fact, lately I've been eyeing this little bookst—"

"—bookstore! Is it the little one—"

"—right around the corner! I've wanted to go in for a while, but my friends—"

"—my friends flatly refuse to give me any free time to peruse books. They say that I should have more of a—"

They chorused the last two words,

"—social life."

They stared right at each other in silence, each sporting a wild grin on their face.

Then, in the next moment, Zach had grabbed Ami's hand and begun to sprint back the way they had come, tossing a careless, "Nevermind!" back to a very confused ticket guy.

Said ticket guy was under the distinct impression that he was not being paid nearly enough.

***

"And what can I do for you two?" The young woman behind the counter asked, quizzically eying the shivering pair that had just entered the bookstore's small café area.

The young man—tall, blonde, jaunty—gestured for the girl—small, blue, shy—to go first at the same time she did the same for him.

They smiled at each other, a bit sheepishly, and, after another moment of silence and confused waiting, they both answered the question simultaneously.

"Peppermint Tea," said the young girl.

"Hot Chocolate," said the young man.

The cashier didn't know why—they had _seemed_ like perfectly normal orders—but the two had a lot of trouble meeting each other's eyes after that.

(And did that shade of red really belong on a person's face?)

***

"Ooph!" Ami plopped the large stack of books down of the carpeted floor and then proceeded to deposit herself beside them.

Once she was comfortably situated with her back against the bookshelves of the very secluded-in-a-corner "Science" section (she was leaning against, most notably, _The Cartoon Guide to Chemistry _and _Chemistry: the Central Science_), she gratefully accepted her peppermint tea back from the young man sitting across from her.

(He looked at the cup rather guiltily; she wondered if he had stolen a few sips.)

She closed her eyes and leaned her head back as the warm liquid slid down her throat, smiling at the blonde man sitting beside a stack that looked much like her own.

(He, for the record, was relaxed against _Atlas of Human Anatomy_ and _Essentials of Human Anatomy and Physiology_)

"So, what'd you get?" She asked, a small grin appearing on her face only to be reflected threefold upon his.

"The ABC's, for starters."

"For starters?"

"I'm only getting warmed up."

"…Am I supposed to be scared?"

"Suit yourself. Where was I?"

"ABC's."

"Right. The ABC's of Science Fiction:" He held up three of his favorite books in a fan-type grip, "Asimov, Brust, and C.S. Lewis."

Ami looked skeptical, "Uh-uh."

"What do you mean, "uh-uh"?" Zach had the courtesy to look affronted.

"The "C" stands for a first name. So they're either "Isaac, Steven, and Clive" or "Asimov, Brust, and Lewis". Neither way does it spell A-B-C."

"Details, details, you nit-picky little perfectionist!"

"Hey, if you hadn't insisted on such a corny joke, there wouldn't have been a problem!"

"Well—"

"All right, all right. I give." Ami chuckled a bit, "I appreciate the attempt—however misguided—at humor."

Zach gave her what would have been a very haughty stare had he not clearly been quite amused.

"So," Ami continued, "science fiction. I wouldn't have thought it of you."

"I like physics books, too, if it helps."

He felt a little thrill of that connection that can only come when two intellectuals find that they have the same taste in books as she said, "Me, too."

For the briefest moment, she looked at him over the top of her tea.

And, for the briefest moment, she couldn't seem to look away.

"So, what about you?"

"Huh?" She was jolted into reality.

Zach graciously repeated the question, "Well, it _was_ your idea to get to know each other through out literary taste, so: what did you find?"

Ami, having understood his intent before he finished his sentence, was already rooting around in her stack for one she wanted to show him.

Then, triumphantly, she slid two books into place before him.

"Hmph. Quite a range, there, isn't it? _A Wrinkle in Time_—isn't that kind of young for you?—"

"A childhood favorite. It always made me feel better when I got insecure about being "the smart one"."

"—and Dickens's_ A Tale of Two Cities_. Quite a read, if I do say so myself."

"I like to think so. It's a classic. I cried at the end."

"Agreed." Then, quickly, "Not about the crying, of course! About the classic thing. Yeah. Classic."

She looked at him skeptically.

"Oh, alright. So I cried. No one in their right mind can read that book and _not_ cry. Happy?"

"Very. Now, onto you—"

Zach held up a hand, "—Not so fast! I showed you three books, and you only showed me two. You owe me a book."

"Yes, but yours were all of the same genre."

"Irrelevant."

"Not irrelevant!"

"Irrelevant. Don't argue, find book."

She obeyed, but not without grumbling.

As she sifted through the books, she mumbled inaudible notes to herself, and Zach thought it was rather adorable the way that she was so completely intent upon the literature.

He, therefore, noticed when she, upon coming to a particular book in the stack, went bright red and pursed her lips, murmuring what might or might not have been "Oh dear, I meant _not_ to put this in."

She quickly tried to hide the offending work under the nearest large book, but was stopped when Zach said (grinning deviously), "Wait! What's that one?" and indicated the one in her hand.

Immediately, she slid between her back and the bookshelf and turned a rosy pink color, grabbing another book at random and saying loudly, "Oh, this? It's _The Complete Stories of Kafka_, it's kind of weird, but…"

She trailed off as she noticed that Zack had put his hot chocolate to the side and was now very, _very _close to her.

"No, not that one." He said in a soft voice.

She was having a little trouble breathing.

After all, he smelled very…how to describe it? She couldn't, quite. A little fresh, like pine needles, and a little bit like the hot chocolate that he so enjoyed—but that was only the tip of it. For the most part, his scent could only be described as definitively masculine.

To be honest, it made her feel slightly light-headed and ridiculously giddy.

So she didn't really realize when his hand crept around her body, dangerously close to her back.

"This one." He said in the same low voice, pulling the book out from behind her with a flourish and a mischievous wink.

Ami made a grab for it, "Hey!" but she was too late, he had the book, and he was sharing his views on it to his extraordinarily embarrassed-looking companion.

"Hmm, _Pride and Prejudice_? Bit of a closet romantic, are we?"

He smirked. She made another grab for the book. He pulled it away.

"Tut-tut. You read science fiction—yes, Ami, _A Wrinkle in Time­_ counts as science fiction—Dickens' classic tales of revolutionary war and self-hatred, Kafka—does he really have a definitive genre? Or is he just _odd_?—and, now, _romance books_! So much for the whole "serious-and-intellectual" front!"

By this point, Zach was chuckling to himself at his own humor, but his miniature speech had given Ami time to get a grip on her embarrassment.

So she looked relatively serene as she shrugged and said, "Well, I can't say I know many girls who haven't fallen for Mr. Darcy at _least_ once!" she glanced Zach "He's quite the perfect man. You know—tall, dark, handsome, brooding…"

As the fair, consistently-lighthearted Zachary looked hesitantly flabbergasted at her comment, she casually reached over and plucked the romance book from his now-loose grip.

Quite frankly, she didn't know quite what had gotten into herself, either. Maybe it was because he made her feel so wildly _confident_…

Whatever the reason, she further surprised herself and him as she looked him up and down critically, and said casually, "Well, two out of four isn't bad."

He gaped at her for a short moment before registering the teasing humor in her voice, in response to which he melodramatically informed her that her scorn was killing him and even more melodramatically enacted his death, nearly (but not quite) spilling over his almost empty hot chocolate onto the carpet.

"Alright! You don't need to knock over the beverages! I get the point!" She examined the young man stretched out before her with a smile, "So, would you mind explaining to me _why_ you have _Harold and the Purple Crayon _in your book-stacks?"

***

It was past midnight when they found themselves in front of Ami's apartment's door.

"Thanks for the ride, Zach," the girl said quietly as she held onto his arm, pulling a strappy stiletto heel onto one foot.

(It simply wouldn't do to have the girls think she had spent the whole night barefoot—or, worse, in Zach's socks. It was bad enough that she was still in jeans and a T-shirt)

Zach looked down at her blue head and then looked at the footwear, "Honestly, I don't see how you managed to walk all the way to the café in those death traps."

"Adrenaline rush."

"Ah."

Silence befell them as the Ami managed to straighten up upon the precarious shoes, send Zach a smile.

He looked down at her, the silence stretching between them like a thousand miles instead of just a minimal number of inches. He wondered if he had the courage to—

"Tonight was…interesting. Thank you." She cut his thoughts off with her statement.

Fidgeting, (and still wondering, was he was supposed to—?) he replied, "Well, I suppose interesting is better than boring, right?"

"Right."

And then there was that silence again, the one they could never seem to escape from, and he was staring at her and looking again and again and again from her blue eyes to her small nose to her lips—and now, _now_ would be the moment, opportunity was knocking.

Hesitant to leave and—_why?_—a little disappointed, the young woman turned and took a step towards the apartment door.

No sooner had she done this than Zach had grabbed her wrist and swung her back to him, one thought reverberating through his head like a prayer:

_Ah, what the hell!_

(The cadence of the thought, it should be mentioned, was very much akin to the way that a first-time bungee jumper, having been outfitted in harness and cord and all, says, "why not?" before jumping off.)

And then, all at once, he was kissing her—nervously and tentatively, but kissing her indeed. And it was slightly uncomfortable, and more than a little awkward, but nonetheless very nice, and Ami noted that Zach tasted like chocolate.

She wondered if she tasted like peppermint.

And though she couldn't ask him—her lips were otherwise occupied—if she _had, _she would have found that she most certainly did, and that, furthermore, he found the taste scarily intoxicating on her.

As it was, she didn't ask, but instead pondered the placement of her hands (she ended up loosely gripping him about the neck), until she realized that thinking straight was really not working, and she wasn't quite sure she was in her right mind, or even that coherent…

…and oh _dear_, he seemed to be getting closer, which was, she recognized on some plane of existence, rather bad for their height difference, and it was _definitely_ uncomfortable, but if she just took a step back like _this…_

…and she never _did_ have very good balance on there heels, and she knows she's stumbling for balance, and she thinks that—

"Ooph!"

The pair fell into the door with a resounding _Thump_, before sliding rather painfully off of the portal and over to the adjacent wall and down to the floor.

By then they were no longer lip-locked, and Ami was sitting up against the wall trying to decide where she was going to bruise, and Zach was practically crawled over her on hands and knees, his face even with hers and trying to decipher her state of well being.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I think so, sorry,—"

"—no, it was my—"

"—if it weren't for these stupid—"

"—feel really bad if—"

"—stumbling around in stilettos—"

So intent had they been on their explanations that neither Zach not Ami heard the faint call of "I think I heard someone knock!," coming from inside the apartment. So, now, when they heard a loud creak, they both turned their heads rapidly to see the person standing in the doorway.

Mina's eyebrows raised in shock as she saw the two sitting in a _quite_ compromising position on the floor, her lips pursed.

"Oh."

The door closed with a slam and the echo of the word "Nevermind!" could be heard from inside the flat.

Zach's head swiveled back around to look at Ami, who was already looking back at him.

They stared at each other with twin baffled expressions.

Then, Ami began to giggle.

Zach, almost immediately, joined in.

What began as a giggle turned into a snicker, which became a chuckle, which morphed into a cackle, which was only one step away from becoming laughter.

All-out, leave-nothing-back, until-you-cry, wild, frantic, nearly-but-not-quite insane, breath-stealing laughter.

Finally, as the laugh came to a decrescendo, Zach spoke, his words broken by chortles,

"Ami," he said, "have you noticed that we don't seem to be able to do anything without making it supremely awkward?"

At that, Ami sighed contentedly. She looked at him and she let out a chuckle.

"You know, Zach, I think I can live with that."

**End**

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Concluding A/N: So, there is the finale of the series, I hope you had as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

I'd love to see what you guys think of the story/stories! So please, please, _please_ review…every review counts.

I'll even bribe you with virtual peppermint hot chocolate. Don't you want virtual peppermint hot chocolate? You know you do! Review!

(P.S. If I were to write a fic for the Fairy Tales section...a Twelve Dancing Princesses spinoff...do you think anyone would read it? *hinthint*)

Love,

~FB~


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